


No Place to Fall

by Verlaine



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verlaine/pseuds/Verlaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time's a bitch to everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to hardboiledbaby for advice, comments and suggestions.

The amnesty never came through.

Lom tried—he was a man of his word and he knew, even if nobody else did, just how badly things could have gone that night in Porterville if Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry had been different men. But the governor had a lot of calls on his time and attention, and in the larger picture the banks and railroads were a lot more important than the sheriff of a pissant little town in the back of nowhere.

Time went by.

One morning beside a campfire out beyond the Pecos, the Kid ruffled Heyes' hair lightly as he handed him a cup of coffee, and a few strands of silver among the dark caught his eye. Not many, but they stood out so bright in the pale early sunshine that he found himself helplessly blinking moisture from his eyes before he looked away. When Heyes asked what was wrong, he just shook his head.

About six months after that, Kid Curry backed down from a gunfight for the first time in his life. He did it with enough cool menace and savvy that nobody except Heyes realized that was what he was doing, but even so Heyes felt something cold and heavy sink into the bottom of his gut like a predator slithering down through the undergrowth.

_So this is what fear feels like,_ he thought with some surprise. _ After all these years, this is fear._

That night in the hotel room they rutted each other with a fierce desperation they usually only allowed themselves out on the trail. Heyes had expected the Kid to be fairly forceful and he'd decided, without even putting much thought behind it, to ride it out. Over the years, he'd seen enough busted gamblers to have no illusions about what it took sometimes to make a man feel like he was in charge of himself again after getting shaken up. Heyes bruised easy, but he healed fast, and one of the things getting shot once or twice had done was put every other kind of pain into perspective.

He got his second shock of the day when the Kid turned over for him. Seeing the lean tawny body stretched out across the damp grey sheets brought up a deep possessive hunger that had him hard and burning in seconds. It was like having a cougar under him, a big dangerous cat, one not exactly tamed but willing to risk vulnerability out of trust.

Seeing that trust tempered his hunger with a protectiveness just as deep.

"Kid—Jed—you sure?" Heyes ran his hand down the Kid's back, feeling the long body shiver under the caress. The Kid rolled his shoulders, muscles bunching and then relaxing as he arched into Heyes' touch.

"Need to feel you. Need to feel you're alive."

Heyes knew exactly what he meant.

Afterwards, with the Kid's weight lying a little too heavily on his chest, Heyes stroked his hair and shoulders and forced himself to calm and silent waiting. Just like a safe: all it took was a steady hand and enough patience, and sooner or later the tumblers would fall into place. The waiting sat hard though. On the one hand, he knew better than to push. The Kid didn't lie real well outside of cons, but he was capable of the sullen stubborn lack of response of a wad of damp dynamite. On the other, Heyes had to know what had happened. Their very survival could depend on how well he could factor the afternoon's events into future encounters. But there was a part of him that didn't want to hear what the Kid had to say. A part that couldn't bear to hear what he feared most: Kid Curry had finally lost his nerve.

"Nope. Not my nerve."

Heyes flinched. He'd never have said it out loud if he hadn't been so shaken at the very idea.

"A fast draw isn't all a gunslinger needs." The Kid's voice was bleak, but calm. "The way he was standing, with the light behind him—I might've had to aim to kill."

For a full minute, Heyes didn't catch on. Then he started remembering things. Things he'd noticed but hadn't seen any reason to pay mind to. The way the Kid kept his hat brim pulled down over his eyes even when it wasn't full sun out. The way he'd started holding a newspaper, tilted to catch the light and a bit further out than looked entirely comfortable. Their last journey by horse, where in the course of three nights on the trail, the Kid hadn't brought down one jackrabbit or prairie chicken for the stew pot.

Heyes didn't sleep much the rest of the night. He spent some of it as he expected to, soothing the Kid out of nightmares of misfired guns and blood splashed on dusty streets. When the Kid finally surrendered to a deeper sleep Heyes found himself still awake, looking at the outline of his own hand against the faint light from the window. He turned it back and forth, flexing his fingers, wondering how long he had before he could no longer hide the painful swelling in the joints.

Wondering if he still had what it took to open even a Brooker 100 if he needed to.


End file.
